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A review by heini
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
4.0
"'We could just walk.'
It was a ridiculous thing to say but I said it anyway.
'Walk?'
'Yeah, just walk.'
Could Moth walk it? It was just a coastal path after all. It couldn't be that hard. And we could walk slowly, put one foot in front of the other and just follow the map. I desperately needed a map. Something to show me the way."
Book about seaside, nature, the landscapes of the South West Coast Path. About long distance walking and homelessness. About illness, age(ing), living, and not having a choice but still actively choosing.
Took some time to get used to the narrator's voice, in the end it was lovely to have had the writer as the audiobook reader too.
At times it was difficult to know who spoke, and what even was spoken out loud.
The Simon bit was hilarious.
But also sad.
Poet Simon Armitage walked a part of the path around the same time as Raynor and Moth. With different starting points and obviously different kinds of books, his journey's premise is "Along the way, he takes no money, stays with strangers, and gives poetry readings to pay his expenses." (Wikipedia)
I haven't read Armitage's book, but that summary highlights the difference of walking long distance as a poet/eccentric/bohemian or it being Cool Big Awesome Thing To Do, and the reality of the Salt Path's couple as homeless hikers who people want nothing to do with. Except when people mistake Moth for Simon.
This is not the kind of travel book with life-affirming encounters with strangers or deep spiritual awakenings. There aren't many nice people around, the towns passed by seem terrifying and the writer has been close to the nature and the "quiet" life all her life.
The hopefullness is about individuals' hope.
The "topics" of homelessness and state of nature are gross in the (UK) politics. This beautiful book highlights the unbelievable stupidity of people in power.
/Some passages I wrote down:
"Spotting didn't come. She always came to the stile for her slice of bread. Always.
As I walked around the fields for her I already knew what I was going to find. Her favorite spot under the beech trees. Her head laid out on the grass as if she was sleeping. She knew. She knew she couldn't leave her field, her place, and had simply died. Put her head on the grass, closed her eyes, and died."
"-- trying to will ourselves to take that first step. Excited. Afraid. Homeless. Fat. Dying. But at least if we make that first step we'd have somewhere to go. We'd have a purpose. And we really didn't have anything better to do at half past three on a Thursday afternoon than to start a 630 mile walk."
"I stirred the tea with odd realisation that I had no work to concern myself about. No domestic problems to be solved. I had no problems at all really. Other than that we were homeless and Moth was dying."
It was a ridiculous thing to say but I said it anyway.
'Walk?'
'Yeah, just walk.'
Could Moth walk it? It was just a coastal path after all. It couldn't be that hard. And we could walk slowly, put one foot in front of the other and just follow the map. I desperately needed a map. Something to show me the way."
Book about seaside, nature, the landscapes of the South West Coast Path. About long distance walking and homelessness. About illness, age(ing), living, and not having a choice but still actively choosing.
Took some time to get used to the narrator's voice, in the end it was lovely to have had the writer as the audiobook reader too.
At times it was difficult to know who spoke, and what even was spoken out loud.
The Simon bit was hilarious.
But also sad.
Poet Simon Armitage walked a part of the path around the same time as Raynor and Moth. With different starting points and obviously different kinds of books, his journey's premise is "Along the way, he takes no money, stays with strangers, and gives poetry readings to pay his expenses." (Wikipedia)
I haven't read Armitage's book, but that summary highlights the difference of walking long distance as a poet/eccentric/bohemian or it being Cool Big Awesome Thing To Do, and the reality of the Salt Path's couple as homeless hikers who people want nothing to do with. Except when people mistake Moth for Simon.
This is not the kind of travel book with life-affirming encounters with strangers or deep spiritual awakenings. There aren't many nice people around, the towns passed by seem terrifying and the writer has been close to the nature and the "quiet" life all her life.
The hopefullness is about individuals' hope.
The "topics" of homelessness and state of nature are gross in the (UK) politics. This beautiful book highlights the unbelievable stupidity of people in power.
/Some passages I wrote down:
"Spotting didn't come. She always came to the stile for her slice of bread. Always.
As I walked around the fields for her I already knew what I was going to find. Her favorite spot under the beech trees. Her head laid out on the grass as if she was sleeping. She knew. She knew she couldn't leave her field, her place, and had simply died. Put her head on the grass, closed her eyes, and died."
"-- trying to will ourselves to take that first step. Excited. Afraid. Homeless. Fat. Dying. But at least if we make that first step we'd have somewhere to go. We'd have a purpose. And we really didn't have anything better to do at half past three on a Thursday afternoon than to start a 630 mile walk."
"I stirred the tea with odd realisation that I had no work to concern myself about. No domestic problems to be solved. I had no problems at all really. Other than that we were homeless and Moth was dying."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness and Terminal illness